Saturn Sector

Originally released in the late 1990s and reissued in 2002 with two extra tracks, this offering by the Russian BM duo distinguishes itself in the main by the sheer ferocity of the music which is essentially raw and primitive stuff conveying the musicians' anger and loathing for humanity. The singing is so gravelly and inhuman that vocalist Abysslooker (I'm presuming it's him as he wrote most of the lyrics) must be singing in a language known only in the deepest parts of Hell where despair and hate reign supreme. The printed lyrics are actually straightforward given that the tracks pay homage to Satan (and show a geeky interest in numbers) and their delivery is minimal as the music is so fast.

As the CD progresses, ambient elements make their presence felt on "Annihilate Thy Forest" and a couple of songs later on use excerpts of Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition". There is some lively organ playing as well. "The Apocalyptic Sacrifice" is a doomy and relatively slow track on an album where the music usually charges at hyper-blistering speed. I get the impression there's a sort of inspired and demented genius behind this album especially when the bonus tracks kick in: "A Masque of the Black Death" (ha-ha) is electro-industrial and "The Number" is a punkish roar with hilarious garbled lyrics delivered at three times the speed of the rest of the album. The music generally doesn't vary much though and any differences are to be found in the details of the songs.

An original version of this review appeared in The Sound Projector (Issue 14, Issue 2005 - 2006) which is now out of print.